Having replenished her bio-mass to its max, Mai felt confident about being able to rescue the Cullers. After all, nothing could be as bad as the momma drone.
I hope, she thought with a wry smile. She wasn’t worried that she was going to be too late as the guideline was still pointing her unerringly in the direction she needed to take.
If they’d all been killed, then the line would have disappeared. That’s what she hoped anyway. It certainly seemed to have been the case for the other rescue and hunt missions that she’d been on so far.
Faint sounds of battle were finally picked up by her helmet’s sensors. There was a lot of gunfire, and only the odd explosion. Which was reassuring. The last few days had been particularly hard, physically and mentally, and the idea of having to face heavy weapons had slowed her steps more than once on the approach to this mission.
Considering how long it had taken her to reach this point, she wasn’t surprised that heavier weapons weren’t being used. The Cullers and the people they were fighting must have been running low on bio-mass by now.
If they had much to start with, not all Cullers would have been going to events which gave bio-mass whereas others might have tried to gain, spent what they had and come away with nothing, her mouth soured at what she’d lost during the event at the waterpark. It was something she knew was going to continue niggling for as long as she lived.
She kicked in her STEALTH skill, moving as silently as she could. Shadows offered her good concealment, and she slipped silently from dark pool to dark pool. Whilst One Mile’s inhabitants might not be too enamoured of their surroundings, at least they allowed those who didn’t want to be seen to remain out of sight.
Although that’s probably just as unsettling for them in other ways, if they’re just normal citizens. Which prompted another thought. Are there actually normal citizens on One Mile or were they all thieves, brigands and ne’er do wells?
Mai chastised herself. The people here were most likely here because of the actions of family members from generations ago. Once you got dropped down the levels, especially this far, it would be nigh-on impossible to escape.
It’s like indenture, but with the illusion of being free, that thought took her by surprise, and she wondered just how free anyone not a Ten Miler or member of the Celestial Court truly was. And even then, were those high-ups truly free of shackles? Whole damn system is broken.
Mai smiled at the thought that she was playing her own small part in further breaking it by helping the Cullers get out and join the rebels.
If they want to, what the Hells do I do if they tell me to piss off? She knew even before she asked that question what she would have to do. She’d have to Cull them. Just hope they’re so weakened by their battle that it’s easily done.
Muzzle flares strobed on the walls ahead of her as the sound of firing and the general noise of combat got louder. Shouts, warnings, screams of anger, cries of pain. It was all too familiar to her now. So much so that she reacted to it more in the way she would if it was raining, rather than with fear or alarm like any normal citizen would do.
Just by listening she was able to judge the ebb and flow of the battle. Work out when people were advancing – there was a higher fire rate – or reloading – a lower fire rate.
Moving to the end of the pedway she lowered herself to the ground and poked her head around the bottom of the corner. Directly opposite her in a beauty shop was a number of Cullers. She couldn’t tell just how many as they were moving around, popping up and down to fire, and there could easily have been more than the number of heads she was counting.
Rolling slightly she looked in the direction they were firing. It was a clothing menu shop, a hologram boasting that it was offering the latest styles.
Latest? They’ve been out of fashion since before I was born! Which told her everything she needed to know about life on this level. Some of the styles in the window she’d only seen on the holomyths. And from what she could tell, none of them were nanite templates. They were actually clothes, clothes.
Return fire strobed back at the Cullers just before her. The clothing shop was in a cul-de-sac, and it was clear that the Cullers in it would be cut down in the blink of an eye if they tried to leave the building.
Similarly, whilst they were trapped, the Cullers who had them trapped also faced a tactical dilemma. As their biomass dwindled they would be faced with two options. Disengage and let the trapped Cullers go. Or attack. And if they attacked, they would also be forced to advance through open ground. Unless they fought through the buildings on either side, but that too would take an awful amount of bio-mass both in terms of ammunition and HEALING.
More firing erupted from her left and she crooked her neck trying to see who was firing from there. Not wanting to expose herself too much and give her position away, she drew back.
Opening her minimap she looked at what she’d been able to glean thus far. From what she’d seen there were at least two groups of Cullers pinning down another group. Whether those two groups were separate teams, or part of one larger team which had split she couldn’t tell. It didn’t really matter either.
Typically, her guideline for the mission led directly to the Cullers trapped at the end of the cul-de-sac.
Bound to be snipers. Bound to be more that I don’t know about, she thought as she looked at how the battle was structured.
Thinking about snipers gave her inspiration. Opening her menu and searching around she finally selected a small-calibre ultra-hyper-velocity rifle. It was huge, the barrel as long as she was tall and came with a scope that she reckoned she could shoot the balls off a gnat with.
It was costly, the most expensive single weapon she’d chosen costing fifty-five per cent, and each round was one per cent, but it was worth it for the other factor of the weapon. It was utterly silent.
She took time to read the description so as to have a better understanding of what it was capable of before she spent the bio-mass.
DEATH WHISPER - Utterly silent, DEATH WHISPER delivers death from up to 3000 paces away on a virtually flat trajectory. Whilst one of the most expensive rifles on the market, it is more than worth the cost. A single shot will kill any unarmoured person if they are hit from their kneecaps to their head. It causes BLEED@15% per second, INTIMIDATION amongst the colleagues of the target, and SUPPRESSION.
There was really no choice in the matter. It was going to utterly devastate anyone she engaged, so long as she could get her shots on target. And even missing was going to have a positively negative effect on those around her target.
She chuckled at her own joke even as she winced at the pain of forming the weapon. And the cost.
BIOMASS – 35%
A magazine of ten rounds had cost her an additional ten per cent.
Extending the bipod legs on the weapon she laid it down on the ground, arm straining at the weight of it. She doubted she’d be able to do anything with that arm whilst it was formed into the sniper rifle. Trying to do anything other than fire it would dislocate her shoulder.
Laying the sights on the group of Cullers opposite her she dialled them back to the minimum magnification. It still felt as though she was standing right next to them. She could see every zit, scar, and blemish they had. It made her feel as though they should be able to see her, even though they were over fifty paces away.
Mai had always thought that snipers were far removed from combat, able to kill without having to properly see who or what they were killing.
Not so. She could see the expressions of fear and anger on the faces of the Cullers in the beauty shop. One of them hadn’t fully ducked back down behind the cover of the shop’s wall. It was just a couple of finger’s worth of head. Normally it would be incredibly difficult to hit, but with this weapon her hit chance was showing as a firm eighty percent. And that was through the wall.
Breathing out slightly and then holding it before she emptied her lungs, she waited for a heartbeat, then fired.
Had the weapon not bucked as the small bullet was sent screaming away, she wouldn’t have realized that the weapon had fired as it was that quiet. There wasn’t even a muzzle flash, just the feel of the weapon punching into her shoulder.
Its effect was instantaneous. At this range there was no discernible gap between firing and hitting her target. The muzzle velocity, that is the speed of the bullet, was so high it was as if she’d used an energy weapon. From firing to result was the blink of an eye. Faster.
HIT!
INSTAKILL!
CONTESTANT 900897 ELIMINATED
Blood and brains blasted into the air and what remained of the target dropped from sight. Aside from a few shouts of alarm, as well as the INTIMIDATED and SUPPRESSED glyphs appearing over the dead Culler’s team members, there was nothing to indicate that they suspected the shot had come from her and not the trapped Cullers.
The Cullers in the clothing shop cheered as the kill marker appeared on their minimap, no doubt thinking that they were the ones responsible for the kill. Mai was happy for them to take the credit as long as it meant that no-one realised what she was doing.
A head popped up and down. Then again. Instead of just firing over the lip of the building and using their weapon’s integral sight to do the aiming, this Culler seemed determined to expose themselves to fire.
When their weapon popped over and she saw a fist gripping it, she understood. The Culler was out of bio-mass and had resorted to using a traditional firearm they’d managed to scavenge at some point.
They really are at the end of their bio-mass reserves. Relief flooded over her. This mission was going to be easier than she initially thought if the Cullers she was facing were limited to the weapons they were holding rather than what they were able to make.
As the head popped up again she sent a bullet directly into the centre of its forehead. With explosive force the top of the skull popped completely off, flying away as the contents of the head showered nearby Cullers.
HIT!
INSTAKILL!
CONTESTANT 101817 ELIMINATED
With the second kill, the Cullers in the beauty shop got a bit more cautious. There was a lot less popping up and down, and a lot more just sticking their weapon over the lip of the shop’s frontage and blind-firing. The fact that they were already SUPPRESSED and INTIMIDATED was most likely an additional factor.
Mai was happy to wait. She knew they’d get impatient with that method of firing as there was no way to know whether they were being effective. No way to see if their enemies were pinned without having eyes-on.
And if they weren’t pinned, they could well be advancing. Which was definitely not something you wanted to find out about at the last minute. Having been pinned down by enemy fire previously, she knew exactly what would be running through their minds.
At least one of them would be trying to encourage one of the others to put their head up. Too scared to do it themselves, they’d be more than happy to put one of their fellows into the firing line – literally – if it meant they had prior warning of what was going on. Even if it meant that one of their own might die.
She didn’t have to wait long. The owner of an assault rifle slowly slid their head up. They were dead long before they had a chance to look over. The power of her rifle was such that any hit to the head was a guaranteed kill.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
KILL!
INSTAKILL!
CONTESTANT 393983 ELIMINATED
This is too easy, Mai thought uneasily. She wasn’t used to things going so well for her and was sure that her good luck would turn any instant.
Looking at her minimap and comparing that to what she could see, she realised that if she moved back a few paces and entered the building she was lying against, she could climb a couple of floors and have a much better angle down into the beauty shop.
Crafting a mine, she placed it where she had been lying. It was a just in case measure. But at the same time it would catch anyone trying to run from the close.
BIOMASS – 30%
Reaching the hab-block’s entrance she paused to check that there weren’t any mines waiting for her. Activating SPOT HIDDEN she took as long as she felt was safe to search.
Finding nothing, she just had to trust her skill that it was because there was nothing, not that she’d missed it. Pushing the door open, she moved through into the main atrium.
It stank of dank and, she imagined, despair. There was the astringent stench of urine in one corner. Nose wrinkling in disgust she moved through and, after searching once more, opened the door leading into the building.
There was a bank of elevators. All of which had out of order glyphs on them. Although, as she thought about it, the idea of being trapped in an elevator during a firefight was distinctly unappealing.
A glyph indicating the stairs was beyond the bank of elevators. Cautiously she walked the length of the corridor, avoiding any piles of rubbish as they were perfect places to hide traps.
Reaching the end of the corridor she let go of the breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding. Looking at the door she activated SPOT HIDDEN and carefully felt for traps and wires.
MINE DETECTED
SPOT HIDDEN SUCCESS!
Mai absorbed her sniper rifle instantly. She’d need both hands to deal with the trap she’d just detected. Doing so meant that her BIOMASS mass was back to sixty-two per cent, each of the rounds she’d fired costing one per cent.
It was a moon-mine, one of the mines that was actually already available to her, but she’d developed a certain fondness for the Bouncing Betty. She liked the way it worked, and the fact that once it had popped up into the air it hit all around.
A moon-mine was considerably less effective in her mind. It was directional, only affecting those directly within the blast radius and this one had been planted with the deadly front facing towards the door. Looking at the door’s hinges she saw that it opened towards her. Doing so would pull the tripwire and detonate the mine.
Sneaky fuckers, she thought admiringly as she activated her USE MINE skill. It not only allowed her to set mines, it also allowed her to remove mines she’d set previously and those set by others . Otherwise she stood just as much chance of killing herself as she did someone else.
With the skill activated she saw that it was a simple matter of unwinding the tripwire from the door’s handle. What wasn’t so simple was the fact that she would have to pull the door slightly open in order to reach through.
“Fuck it, I’m going to cut it,” she said to herself. It felt good to hear a voice, even if it was hers, at a time like this. Although she rather felt that having someone hanging around, looking over her shoulder would have been somewhat off-putting.
Stepping to the side of the door, using a wall to get as much shelter as possible, she grasped the handle and slowly twisted it. For a moment she thought it wasn’t going to turn. Heart hammering, palm increasingly slick, she tightened her grip and slowly, hardly daring to breathe she twisted.
With a click the latch disengaged.
“Well, that wasn’t too bad,” she whispered, even though she knew it to be a lie. Hand shaking, she tried to steady her nerves before she took the next step. Setting a mine was far easier than disarming or absorbing one.
Sweat beaded on her head as she increased the pressure on the handle and slowly pulled it towards her. As badly maintained as the rest of the building the door resisted, the poor materials warped by the constant damp, causing it to resist.
“Come on you utter bastard,” she hissed, increasing the strength of her pull, bracing herself so that she could get more leverage.
More resistance, she increased the pressure, sweat beading on the tip of her nose. And then, with no warning, it popped open, the sudden movement surprising her, the door jolting open far wider than she had meant.
With no time for rational thought she slipped her Culler knife through the gap and cut the wire even as the door continued to open. There was a twang as the wire gave way under the blade, curling out of sight with sudden energy.
Nothing. Mai slid down the wall, her trembling legs unable to support her any longer. Sweat slicked her forehead whilst her heart tried simultaneously to either stop or force its way through her ribcage.
That was too close. Way too close, she thought, bottom lip trembling at the thought of what might have happened. Still, a success was a success, and she wasn’t lying on the floor screaming her last few breaths.
A couple of minutes later her body had stopped shaking enough for her to form an SMG for six per cent BIOMASS and push on into the rest of the building.
BIOMASS – 56%
The stairs were littered with rubbish she was sure was older than her father would have been, let alone her. Flies and other bugs she couldn’t quite recognise filled the air. Rather than risk ingesting any, she formed a mask over her face for half a per cent BIOMASS and crept up the stairs, scanning for any other threats.
Damned things are making my skin crawl, she thought as she shrugged her shoulders to get rid of an imaginary itch between her shoulders. Huffing, she blew through her mask to clear a couple of fire flies which had decided she made a good resting point. It was maddeningly distracting, something she really didn’t need at that moment.
As soon as she reached the first floor, she activated her SPOT HIDDEN skill again and checked the exit. Nothing. Cracking the door open, this time using a foot to check the door in case it was stuck she took a peek.
Nothing.
Throwing the door open she stepped into the corridor dropping to her knee as she aimed down one end, then spun and aimed down the other.
Nothing. She didn’t know what was worse. Expecting an enemy and then not finding one, but knowing that they were out there, or finding one and having to kill them. Neither were appealing, but her nerves were jangling to the point she was craving some sort of release.
Looks like they were relying on the moon-mine to deter attackers and give them an early warning. This far up they might not have heard the explosion, but they would have been warned by HIT! or KILL! notifications. Which would have given them plenty of time to prepare a nasty surprise.
The battle was still raging outside, with absolutely no diminishment in the sound of battle. The amount of BIOMASS being spent was ridiculous, and she could only hope that the majority of Cullers would soon find themselves having to rely on hard-printed versions of their weapons. Preferably they’d been reduced to using their Culling issue knives. And her guideline still pointed to the Cullers at the end of the close.
Mission’s still on, but why was Anne allowed to create the damn thing in the first place? Why did the system let her create a mission which goes against the rules of the Celestial Court? But then she remembered how she’d thought about the way gangs could most likely create missions as well, and whilst it made no sense that the Celestial Court would allow such things, it did follow a sort of logic in that people with professions – no matter how bad those professions were – could skill up.
Mai wasn’t satisfied with that though. It rankled that people who deliberately chose to go against the rules and laws of society, who could cause misery, should in some way be rewarded by doing such things.
Taking the first apartment door she came to which was on the side she needed, she knelt and placed a cupped hand on the door then placed her ear onto that. SPOT HIDDEN was still active, and she kicked in her SITUATIONAL AWARENESS as well.
She remained that way for a slow count of thirty, listening to the sounds coming from the apartment. She could hear nothing. More importantly, she couldn’t hear anyone firing a weapon.
Who dares wins, she thought as she stood up and crossed to the other side of the corridor. Taking a deep breath, she turned slightly sideways, tucking her shoulder down as she charged at the door. A split-second of resistance and she was through, the door ripping itself from its hinges. Still slightly off balance, she spun on the spot, trying to cover all of the corners of the room.
“Don’t kill us! Please, don’t kill us!” the hab was inhabited! Mai thought her heart had stopped with the shock of coming face-to-face with the old couple who lived there. She snapped up the barrel of her SMG, shocked at how close she had been to firing.
Raising her non-weapon hand in the universal palm sign of peace, she looked at the couple huddled behind a ratty old sofa they’d up-ended to act as some form of cover. It was heartbreakingly sad to see just how poor they were, and how the Culling was affecting them.
“I’m not going to kill you grandmother,” Mai said, keeping her tone low and calm. “But it would be good if you left for a while as I’ve got to Cull some other people.”
They gave jerky nods and fled as fast as their old bones would let them. Muttered thanks and stifled sobs reached her ears as they fled through the ruins of their door. Mai had to quash a pang of guilt as she looked at the wreckage.
For a moment she stood in the now-empty apartment, then opened up her menu. Scrolling down to the section she’d used to create her room back in the rebel base, she found a nice-looking door which was far sturdier than the one she’d completely destroyed.
At only point two per cent of BIOMASS it was more than she owed the couple and was more than happy to create a hard copy. Whilst she had zero clue as to how to actually attach it, she betted on the chance that the old couple might know someone who could help them., And hopefully not rip them off. The couple, not the remaining hinges that was.
Moving to the hab’s grime covered window, she rubbed at the encrusted dirt with her sleeve. It just smeared it rather than cleaning it, but that was better than nothing. From what she could tell she was directly opposite the beauty shop and could see into it far better than she could if she was on the ground.
Once that window is gone, that is, she was slightly appalled at how the old couple had been so downtrodden by the surrounding grime that they hadn’t bothered to even clean the inside of the windows. Normally drones would clean the windows of those habs which had them.
Aside from the three she had killed there were another five members of the team using it as cover. Movement caught her eye, and she lifted her head to see another Culler poking their weapon out of a window opposite her. Well, it seemed to be a Culler the way they were popping up and down, but the grease made it hard to be sure.
Then the Culler opened fire, the muzzle flare confirming her suspicions.
“You’re first,” she thought. Absorbing the SMG and forming the sniper rifle she stepped back slightly. Her rifle’s rounds had a penetration power that meant they would barely slow when passing through most walls.
BIOMASS – 17%
Looking at the state of the walls around her, she reckoned that her bullets would easily pass through the thin and poorly made walls of the hab. Build quality here was appalling, the bare minimum to provide people with somewhere to live. How it held up the weight of the miles above them she didn’t know. Maybe there were load bearing walls and supports elsewhere.
Taking aim she cursed at the dirt on the window. It wouldn’t be a problem once she fired, but the glass showering down onto the ground would most likely give her position away. Reaching out, she tried to force it open. It barely moved. And she couldn’t risk trying too hard in case she broke the window and gave her position away before she took her shot.
She was just going to have to deal with the poor visibility even though at this range there wasn’t much chance of missing.
“Can’t be helped,” she fired.
The glass blew out of the window in time for her to see a puff of plasticrete where her shot hit.
No notification. She’d missed. The Culler’s weapon jerked back from the window as the owner took cover, a SUPPRESSED glyph popping up before they dropped out of sight. From where she stood she couldn’t see down into the beauty shop, but the sound of the shouts had changed.
Lady Luck you fucking suck! They know I’m here! What are the damned odds! She knew what the odds were. Even if she was Rank Five in the use of sniper rifles that only meant she had a twenty-five per cent chance of critical hits. That didn’t correlate with her chances of hitting her targets.
Keeping her sight on the window opposite she held her fire. If she didn’t shoot, the Culler opposite might just think that she’d bolted. Or not even know where the shot had actually come from.
No fire came from the beauty shop from below. Unable to see her they clearly weren’t certain whether the glass had been broken by a stray shot.
Slowly, the weapon opposite reappeared. Able to see better, she tracked its length, stopping where she thought the owner’s body would be. With Death Whisper all she needed was an upper body hit.
Boom she thought as she fired again, finding the lack of any sound from the weapon distinctly unnerving, her mind rather irreverently acting on its own accord.
KILL!
CONTESTANT 908765 ELIMINATED
Without hesitation she strode towards the window, angling her rifle downward as she did. As soon as her sight cleared the window ledge she was able to see the inhabitants of the beauty shop.
It was the perfect angle. Whilst the Cullers might have thought they were concealed from the Cullers they’d trapped, they were completely open to attack from above. And because of the way the wall was angled, they were lined up like ducks in a row.
Mai fired as quickly as she could, switching from target to target.
KILL!
CONTESTANT 299873 ELIMINATED
KILL!
CONTESTANT 593989 ELIMINATED
KILL!
CONTESTANT 699382 ELIMINATED
The remaining Cullers screamed with fear as the bodies of their comrades toppled to the floor. Scrambling away, they moved deeper into the beauty shop and out of her line of sight.
“Shit,” Mai cursed as she moved her sight around, trying to get any sort of angle on her targets. A head popped out into view for a split second. A heartbeat later, a muzzle that she hadn’t spotted flashed, a bullet cracking into the wall a couple of paces away from her.
She was going to have to move. They knew where she was, and she still had another group to deal with. And there was also the chance that the person who had laid the moon-mine was still in the hab block.
And I still don’t know where they are dammit.
Absorbing the rifle once again, she swapped it for an SMG and left the apartment.
BIOMASS – 50%
Time to hunt.